Status of data

These graphs were last updated on Saturday Mar 06, 2021, 08:34 PM

Source of data

The following summarizes COVID-19 test, case and death statistics obtained from the covidtracking.com API. Data for comparison to other causes of death obtained from the CDC. US Population estimates obtained from WorldOMeters. Vaccination data obtained from Our World in Data.

Visualizations

Tests performed


Figure 1. To assess the increasing COVID-19 testing in the US, the number of new tests reported each day are summarized below.


Figure 2. The cumulative number of tests performed to date.


Figure 3. Change in test capacity from previous day


Positive cases

Figure 4. The number of new positive cases reported each day are summarized below. Horizontal dotted line indicates the high water mark. Vertical dotted line indicates the first day of large scale vaccination.


Figure 5. The cumulative number total positive cases reported to date (black). The cumulative number of total vaccinations given to date (blue). Vertical dotted line indicates the first day of large scale vaccination.


Positive test rate

Figure 6. This graph shows the rate of positive tests observed out of all the tests performed on that same day. As the testing capacity increases we might start to see more people getting test who have less obvious symtoms, more people being tested out of caution, or to assure safety for working with the public, etc. If that is the case we might see the positive test rate start to drop as testing become widely available. On the other hand, if infection in the community is already widespread we might not see as much of a drop here. Vertical dotted line indicates the first day of large scale vaccination.


Figure 7. This graph is similar to the previous one but shows the cumulative positive test rate. We should see a similar trend here that as the pandemic passes and testing becomes widely available, the number of negative results will accumulate while the number of positive results slows. Over time, if the outbreak is contained this number should drop. On the other hand, if the outbreak continues to spread, many positives will continue to accumulate. If the rate of community infection is already high or continues to grow, this rate could actually still increase in the coming weeks. Vertical dotted line indicates the first day of large scale vaccination.


Deaths

Figure 8. Number of new deaths observed each day. Pretty self explanatory. We want this to trend downwards… Horizontal dotted line indicates the high water mark. Vertical dotted line indicates the first day of large scale vaccination.


Figure 9. Number of new deaths observed each day compared to estimated number of deaths per day from other common causes. Other causes of death are based on the CDC leading causes of death report for 2017 (annual death number / 365 to determine the average daily number for each cause). Also note that for some of the lower causes of death the CDC report does not provide a total count and I compiled it from the ethnicity comparison (table D). This will underestimate deaths from liver disease, septicemia, hypertension, and assault. The estimated deaths from other causes have been adjusted to account for ~2% population increase since 2017.


Figure 10. Cumulative deaths observed to date. Vertical dotted line indicates the first day of large scale vaccination.


Figure 11. Cumulative deaths observed to date compared to other causes of death (annual numbers). This has similar caveats to the plot above comparing daily deaths from covid to other common causes.


Death rate

Figure 12. The overall cumulative apparent death rate. An overall estimate of the deadliness of the disease. As testing becomes more widespread and larger numbers of people are tested (even those with less severe symptoms) this number will hopefully drop. In the early days of the outbreak, many of those tested were presumably those with the worst symptoms. This contributes to a very high apparent fatality rate. As testing becomes more widespread, this rate should drop. However, unless testing becomes very widespread and systematic, it will probably always overestimate the true lethality of the disease because some will get the virus, remain healthy and never get tested. Vertical dotted line indicates the first day of large scale vaccination.


Herd immunity

Figure 13. Potential sources of immunity broken down into categories. This analysis makes several broad assumptions.

  1. Children (14 and younger) are removed from these calculations. The current vaccines are described as not being for use in children and very few children suffer death from COVID (<0.034% of deaths occur in the 0-14 age group). It is not clear if the vaccine will ever be given to children at this point.

  2. That lasting immunity is conferred to 95% those infected by COVID. This was based on Dan et al. 2021

  3. That a large proportion of infections have never been detected. These estimates are all over the map. The following is based on https://covid19-projections.com/ data from Jan 10th, where they estimated only 1 in 3.8 total true infections have been identified.

  4. That when you vaccinate a group of people, some have already been infected and therefore your aren’t gaining as many new immune people as it seems. This is taken into account by assuming that on any day vaccination numbers are looked at, the current known+presumed infected proportion was in effect.

  5. Other more minor caveats. This assumes once you are immune, you stay that way. This also assumes that everyone who gets the vaccine becomes immune. It also does not take deaths from COVID into account for population size (population size is fixed).

Executive summary

The following pulls some reference values from the data based on the latest update and summarizes a few key numbers:

340,512 tests were performed yesterday, of which 20.2% were positive (68,787 new cases). Total number of tests performed to date stands at 102,974,007. Total cases in the US now stands at 28,654,639 and the cumulative positive test rate stands at 27.8%. There were 2,221 new deaths yesterday, the total number of deaths in the US now stands at 512,629 and the cumulative death rate now stands at 1.8% (based on confirmed cases only). We have now vaccinated 55,547,697 adults (at least one dose), which represents 20.8% of the non-child population. Immunity from vaccination, infection (or both) is now estimated to cover 52.6% of the non-child population. Based on the last 14 days we can project that 75% herd immunity could occur in 77 days, and that 95% herd immunity could occur in 145 days (using a simple linear model, all sources of immunity, and considering all other other assumptions listed above).
Currently cumulatively for the whole year COVID19 is estimated to be the number 3 cause of death when comparing current deaths to expected annual deaths from other causes.
Over the past week the average daily deaths was 1,803. That rate would result in 658,095 deaths annually. At that rate it would be the number 2 cause of death compared to expected annual deaths from other causes.
Over the past two weeks the average daily deaths was 1,960. That rate would result in 715,400 deaths annually. At that rate it would be the number 1 cause of death compared to expected annual deaths from other causes.
Over the past three weeks the average daily deaths was 2,139. That rate would result in 780,735 deaths annually. At that rate it would be the number 1 cause of death compared to expected annual deaths from other causes.
Over the past four weeks the average daily deaths was 2,293. That rate would result in 836,945 deaths annually. At that rate it would be the number 1 cause of death compared to expected annual deaths from other causes.